“Beauty is perfect in its imperfections, so you just have to go with the imperfections.”

– Diane von Furstenberg

I spent a long time thinking about this because it’s something that I’ve always struggled and wondered about for myself, my friends and other women that I know.

After all, who isn’t taught to be perfect?

Much more than that, what is perfect?

At the time of the Harper’s Bazaar article, Furstenberg was referring to a ski accident that she had had that made her face blue, purple and swollen.

In the article she jokes about how she should have showed up to her portrait session with Chuck Close with her blue face, but no swelling.

“To erase is the horrible thing, because if you erase things in your face, you basically erase souvenirs, you basically erase memory, you basically erase pieces of you that made you.

And itâ€™s the layers of your life that give you character.”

– Diane von Furstenberg

Right now, in what she calls the ‘early Fall’ of her life, Furstenberg makes a point to talk about how she grew into the woman she is today by accepting life and the things that happened to her along the way both good and bad.

“For me, imperfections and wrinkles give you character.

Theyâ€™re the road map of your life.

If youâ€™ve laughed your whole life, you have laugh lines.

If youâ€™ve frowned your whole life, you have furrows on your brow.

All the stuff that people want to hide is exactly what needs to be there for a portrait, as far as Iâ€™m concerned.

I love the stuff that people hate, all stuff that people airbrush out or Photoshop out.”

– Diane von Furstenberg

I had the opportunity to sit down with Furstenberg during the New York City leg of her fragrance launch tour for ‘Diane’ and ask her a few questions.

I asked her about the quotes from the Harper’s Bazaar article, because they hit a nerve with me, and I was curious to know more about her thoughts on them.

A succinct woman, she said it perfectly,

“You are you are, be yourself – that is what I meant.

Something I discovered a long time ago, was that as a girl, I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew the woman I wanted to become… I wanted to share.”

Quite fitting for the woman whose tagline for her new signature perfume is, “Be the woman you want to be.”

So I asked her, if she has any advice for young women such as myself out there — those of us who have no idea what we’re doing, we just have a dream of where we see ourselves, what would it be?

“The most important relationship in this life is the relationship you have with yourself.

Love yourself.

You have to live with you forever.

Be happy.”

Something else in her mantra of life lessons that fit perfectly into the entire aura of her signature scent –

During the course of the evening, Diane talked about how scent, like other sensory pieces, can evoke emotion.

It was ironic, endearing and rather funny to me at the same time because I could hear my own mother in Furstenberg, who said that you should always have different perfumes to wear for different occasions.

The thing is, not Furstenberg nor my mother mean that you should stock up on scents to fit a trunk, but rather be versatile, because your mood is versatile.

Wear what you like, and what will give you confidence and comfort at that moment in time.

If you want to purchase, ‘Diane,’ you can find it at fine department stores everywhere as well as your closet Sephora or Sephora.com

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Sasha H. Muradali runs the Little Pink Blog (formerly Little Pink Book PR). She holds a B.S. Public Relations from the University of Florida with a minor in Dance (â€™07) and an M.A. International Administration with a concentration in Communication from the University of Miami (â€™08). She loves Twitter(@SashaHalima), Harry Potter and the colour pink. Get a copy of the Little Pink Blogdelivered to your Kindle and find us on Facebook.